Texas Governor Rick Perry has called another special session of the state legislature, according to a press release from the governor’s office:

I am calling the Legislature back into session because too much important work remains undone for the people of Texas. Through their duly elected representatives, the citizens of our state have made crystal clear their priorities for our great state. Texans value life and want to protect women and the unborn. Texans want a transportation system that keeps them moving. Texans want a court system that is fair and just. We will not allow the breakdown of decorum and decency to prevent us from doing what the people of this state hired us to do.

The “breakdown of decorum and decency” refers to the disruption by pro-abortion activists of last night’s Senate vote on S.B. 5, a bill prohibiting abortions of children aged more than 20 weeks and establishing tougher health and safety standards for abortion clinics. As Charmaine Yoest reported earlier on the Corner, the protests (along with a much-touted filibuster by a Democratic opponent of the bill) pushed the Senate past the midnight expiration of the legislative session. Reached by telephone this morning, Texas Right to Life spokeswoman Elizabeth Graham stated that it was important for Governor Perry to call another session, in order to restore order to the legislative process after the chaotic events of last night: “Whether or not he’s thinking about running for the presidency again, he cannot have the abortion people rioting in the Capitol again, obstructing his agenda.”

Graham also offered a response to critics who claim that the bill would make abortions in Texas more difficult and dangerous by reducing the number of clinics able to meet the state’s higher standards: “While we mourn women going through with an abortion decision, at the very least women who go to abortion clinics for this elective procedure should have the expectation that they will come out alive . . . and so adding improved health and safety regulation to abortion clinics seems like common sense.” Abortion clinic conditions in Texas have recently garnered international coverage after former employees of a Houston clinic accused Doctor Douglas Karpen of killing babies born alive — an accusation similar to those substantiated against Philadelphia abortionist Kermit Gosnell, who was convicted of first-degree murder last month in a highly-publicized trial.

According to Perry’s office, the special session will convene at 2 p.m. on Monday, July 1.